Food Start-Ups Have a New Home on the Williamsburg Waterfront

With the remnants of the nearby Domino Sugar Refinery in the background, a new kitchen incubator hopes to attract a crop of environmentally responsible entrepreneurs to the Williamsburg waterfront: Green Desk, which made its name by offering flexible work spaces to those tired of hopping on conference calls at local cafés, just put out an ad specifically geared toward attracting food start-ups.

Essbar Juicing is one of the new businesses opening soon at brand-new 240 Kent Avenue

Lyons

The Williamsburg Green Desk space features a full commercial kitchen, and by appealing specifically to the food community, it becomes one of several incubators courting businesses with edible slants in the area. For instance, Brooklyn's Pfizer Plant, which once pumped out products like Lipitor and Viagra, now produces much tastier medicine, including McClure's Pickles and People's Pops. And with the growing pop-up pool and the number of bars offering makeshift cooking space for small outfit operations like Lucy Roux at D.B.A. Brooklyn, we expect that offering proper kitchen time for less than what it would cost a small business to pick up a true commissary spot is a trend that will continue to grow.

The mixed-used space at this address includes office, retail, and food production, and it already has several tenants lined up.

Billy Lyons is a weekly contributor to Village Voice dining section. His food-focused articles and videos have also been featured by Zagat and Thrillist. He's always to looking to find the intersection where food meets culture, and believes everyone should have their very own James Bond-style cocktail. Lyons holds a BA from the University of Richmond in Rhetoric and Communication Studies. He can be found on Instagram at @billyondollarman.